Oil Pressure Light

Caddis · **Posted:** Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:40 pm

Well, I'm now officially a CRD owner, took possession of mine today, and the fun has already begun. While my mother was delivering the jeep to me today (my folks had been visiting my brother about 250 miles away and she nicely agreed to drive it back for me as we live in the same vicinity) the little engine oil pressure warning light began coming on intermittently literally 2 miles from my place. I've since driven it around a little bit, and the light only comes on briefly when slowing down to turn, 25 mph or less, and as soon as you accelerate above 20 it goes off immediately. I checked the oil level and I assume it's fine, halfway between min and max on the dipstick. The temp gauge seemed normal, even after the 4 hr trip in 70 degree temps today.
The engine sounded like it was running fine, but I did the MAP sensor cleaning (looked exactly liked the plugged ones in the NOOB guide) and it now sounds smoother and accelerates even better. I want to do the ORM but I'm wondering if I dare bring about the CEL if I potentially have an oil pressure problem. Any thoughts on whether is something I can monitor carefully or should I not be driving this until I can identify the problem. Thanks in advance.

msilbernagel · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:53 am

I'd be concerned about the oil pressure, yes.

Tell us what you know.. year, odometer, mods, history?

Mark

geordi · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:23 am

You would already know if it was an actual oil leak that caused the light to come on. It would fail and start making bad noises within about 1 minute.

I recently had exactly the same failure and drove around for about 600 miles with that light on. No, there is nothing wrong with your CRD, it has a mechanical oil pump in the pan, run by gears from the crankshaft.

The sensor by the oil filter has failed. Until you can replace this $45 thing, unplug it and ignore that light. It will not hurt anything, and it also will not prevent a catastrophic failure because of where Chrysler chose to locate it - at the BOTTOM, directly opposite the output of the filter. This will be the LAST place to lose oil pressure if you suddenly have a massive leaking failure.

I lost my entire #1 cylinder through a hole in the oil pan, and that light never came on. It is useless.

maxwellp · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:56 am

You could put a real gauge on it and you would know if you have a problem. :pepper:

papaindigo · **Posted:** Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:30 am

For those of you that are interested in a real oil pressure gauge in a real location (e.g. not down at the bottom) geordi and I will be looking at that hopefully this weeked and I'll post positive/negative results.

That said I too have experienced, not on my CRD, a bad idiot light sender and it was sure nice to have a real gauge telling me things were fine between the time the light came on and when I got off the interstate to a very nice Chrysler dealer who fixed the problem right away about noon the day before Christmas some years back.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:20 pm

papaindigo wrote:

For those of you that are interested in a real oil pressure gauge in a real location (e.g. not down at the bottom) geordi and I will be looking at that hopefully this weeked and I'll post positive/negative results.

I will be most interested to hear the results of your research. I am thinking this is the outgrowth of the discussions on the turbo oiling failures? In any case, I have a Gage kit waiting for a place to put it.....

geordi · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:12 pm

Yes it is from those discussions. The design flaw is that if you lose the turbo on these (and probably most other modern turbocharged vehicles) you will lose the oil charge in short order. If you don't catch it, the engine right behind that. You have literally seconds to figure out what happened, and get the engine into neutral and shut off, especially if the oil failure is a big leak.

My first turbo failure was a shaft snapping, and when that happened, the entire flow of the oil line to the turbo was allowed into my exhaust. I figure that firehose pumped out my oil pan in about 30 seconds or so. A side problem to that large of a failure is that the same oil gallery that feeds the turbo also feeds each of the cylinders. Punch a large leak into that pressurized gallery, and the pressure will all take the path of least resistance - Away from the cylinders. It is ENTIRELY possible that the cylinders starved for oil even before all of it was gone, simply because of the pressure loss.

The new location for the oil pressure sensor is adjacent to cylinder #1 on the passenger side of the motor, in that oil gallery. There are a couple locations to choose from, but this seems the most promising to me, and could require the least disassembly to install a probe.

We will actually try and get pictures this time, so everyone can see what to do for this. It may (probably will) require a custom adapter because of the threaded hole... But that is a minor point and we already have a source that can make these adapters for us. Then it is just a matter of removing a plug, threading in the adapter and the sensor behind it, and running the wires. Easier than installing a boost probe or EGT, b/c the port is already there.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:23 pm

No drilling? No tapping? SuhWEET! :pepper:

Definitely keep us posted on that!

papaindigo · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:10 pm

geordi makes it sound so simple and I hope it is. Just to be clear though; the options are 1 of 3 holes in the upper oil gallery that are currently closed with a threaded plug. At minimum placing a sending unit in one of those holes will require an adapter to fit a 1/8 NPT sending unit to the metric threads of the plugged hole. I've had 3 adapters made using redone OEM turbo oil feed adapters which is not the best option. If this works though I think we can find a standard metric bolt that can be drilled and tapped for 1/8 NPT by a local machine shop. Stay tuned.

dgeist · **Posted:** Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:54 pm

I think y'all need a beta testers thread with volunteers (like me)

Hurry, I'm due for an oil change really soon...

ACRucrazy · **Joined:** Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:10 pm **Posts:** 32

Just replaced oil pressure sensor in sisters Caravan last week for the same issue and have done it in the past on my Dakota and Neon.

If you really don't have oil pressure you will find out real quick.

geordi · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 4:21 am

Which only goes to prove the complete uselessness of the idiot light system. Even my 94 Town and Country MINIVAN has an actual oil pressure gauge. Is the sender accurate? I don't really know, it has been in there for 230k miles now. It is probably a little tired by now.

Hopefully we will get some great pics tomorrow of the sensor job, and be able to offer them to the group as an alternative that actually gives REAL information. Time will tell.

Caddis · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 7:23 am

geordi wrote:

. Until you can replace this $45 thing, unplug it and ignore that light.

I assume it's the sensor plug almost immedetiately behind the filter? I think I am going to get rid of that annoying light and dinging.

geordi · **Posted:** Fri Mar 23, 2012 11:57 am

Caddis wrote:

geordi wrote:

. Until you can replace this $45 thing, unplug it and ignore that light.

I assume it's the sensor plug almost immedetiately behind the filter? I think I am going to get rid of that annoying light and dinging.

Yes, that is it.

I thought about the old mechanic's trick of crossing the pins with a paperclip to keep the computer happy and the light off... It has 3 pins. Argggggg. Just leaving it unplugged is enough that it will only ding once when you start the motor, then not again. Unfortunately, that red light will be shining at you the whole time. I just ignored the light for the time when I didn't have the sensor.

Oil Pressure Light

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